


a war between the good and bad

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s01e11 The Magical Place, F/M, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 01:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5564320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I hope that bitch dies in prison."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. something wrong

**Author's Note:**

> I am behind on comment replies and will get to that...hopefully soon. But no promises because I'm the worst.
> 
> Title is from Tatiana Manaois' _Choose_ , and this also acts as my fill for the Ward x Simmons Winter theme of the same name. Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

“I hope that bitch dies in prison.”

For a second, Grant’s sure he’s misheard. After all, it’s been a long week—he’s gotten maybe six hours of sleep total in the last four days—and his ears are still ringing a little from that last punch the Centipede soldier he took down got in. A little hearing trouble is both reasonable and _much_ more likely than Simmons actually just saying what he thought she said.

But a quick glance at the others suggests he heard right, because they’re all gaping. Or, well, Skye and Fitz are gaping and May’s eyebrows are furrowed a little, which is about as close as she gets.

Okay, then. So Simmons really did just express her hope that Raina will die—and did so by swearing. For anyone else, that wouldn’t exactly be a big deal (again, it’s been a long week, and it’s no surprise the team is itching for revenge, considering the state they found Coulson in), but for _her_?

Simmons is all about the preservation of life, so much so that she worked herself into exhaustion this week trying to find a non-fatal way to deal with the Centipede soldiers. Add to that the fact that the strongest word he’s ever heard her use is _damn_ —and that after she nearly _died_ —and something’s definitely wrong with this picture.

Especially since _she_ doesn’t seem to realize that anything’s wrong at all. She looks from Skye to Fitz and back again, face twisted in confusion.

“What?” she asks innocently.

Grant gives her a quick once-over. He was a little too busy with the soldier he was fighting to be involved himself, but he knows the others split up to search the test site for Coulson. Maybe she was injured?

But there’s no sign of a head injury, and it’s been hours since they got back to the Bus. If she was hurt, she would’ve mentioned it by now—or at the very least, someone would’ve noticed.

So it’s not down to a head injury, then. But now that he’s looking at her closely, there’s definitely something…wrong.

…Is she _taller_?

Oh, fuck.

A horrible suspicion sets in, and his heart sinks under the weight of it. He really, really hopes he’s wrong, because if he’s not? This is gonna get _messy_.

“Hey, Simmons,” he says, tone carefully casual. May’s eyes narrow. “Think I might’ve torn a few stitches in the desert. You mind taking a look?”

“Of course,” she agrees readily. “Have a seat!”

No tsking over his carelessness, no scolding for waiting so long to mention it—she doesn’t even roll her eyes while she grabs her medkit from the counter.

She _also_ doesn’t so much as flush when he gives her his best smile in thanks, and considering the torch she’s been carrying since he saved her life? That’s saying something.

May realizes it, too—and while Skye and Fitz aren’t _quite_ as tuned in, they’ve obviously picked up on the fact that something’s off.

“Simmons,” Fitz starts, slowly, and Grant gives May a nod.

The two of them aren’t on the same wavelength the way she is with Coulson, but they’ve fought and sparred and even slept together. They’re the heavy hitters on a team that’s found itself in danger on what’s basically been a twice-weekly basis, and sharing that kind of responsibility can build a bond.

(Grant’s gone to great lengths to ensure that it has.)

So he knows he can count on her to get Fitz and Skye out of here—just like she knows she can trust him to distract Simmons while she does.

“Some privacy, please?” he asks.

Tellingly, Simmons doesn’t even blink at the request, even though she regularly patches him up in front of the entire team during debriefs. Skye and Fitz _do_ react—they’re putting the pieces together—but Grant moves quickly to block Simmons’ view of them (and May’s efforts to usher them out of the lab).

He stands closer than he normally would, bracing a hand on the counter beside her to take some of the pressure off his ribs as he leans in. She doesn’t retreat at all; in fact, she sways towards him a little. The look in her eyes is all wrong.

She’s been flirting with him for weeks, and it’s honestly been kind of cute. Simmons is too straightforward, too _blunt_ , to really pull off the kind of subtle seduction he’s used to. She’s all laughter and smiles and blushes when he smiles back. It’s almost refreshing.

This right here? The little smirk pulling at her lips, the promise behind her heavy gaze—that is _not_ how Simmons looks at him. Or anyone, really.

He’s almost positive, now, but a little more extra proof never hurts. And he can hear Fitz and Skye behind him, putting up a (mercifully quiet) fight as May tries to get them out. A distraction is still in order.

“And speaking of privacy,” he adds, lowering his voice. “About what happened last night…”

Nothing happened last night, aside from her taking the time to (very hypocritically) scold him for not sleeping—but it’s obvious Simmons doesn’t know that. Her eyes go wide and then dart away as a flush crawls up her neck.

“Oh, I—I think we should forget it for now,” she says, “don’t you?”

“We said we’d talk about it once Coulson was rescued,” he presses—a complete lie, but once again, she doesn’t call him on it.

“I know,” she says, “but I really don’t think this is the time—”

“Simmons,” he interrupts, and she goes quiet. There’s a mirrored cabinet off to the right, perfectly angled to let him see May give up on negotiation and physically drag Fitz and Skye out to the cargo bay. “What am I talking about?”

She stares up at him, brow furrowed. “What?”

“I said, what am I talking about?” he repeats. “Tell me what happened last night.”

She knows she’s been made. The thought is plain as day as it flits across her face, and, reading her intentions in the way her muscles tense, he slams her back against the counter just before she makes a break for it.

Outside the lab, May hits the quarantine button, and the doors slide instantly shut.

“Who are you?” Grant demands. “Where’s Simmons?”

Two very important questions, because he’s one hundred percent sure that whoever’s struggling against him, it’s not Simmons. Not only is she lacking in some of Simmons’ basic personality traits and at least an inch taller than the real thing, it’s obvious she’s got some training, whereas the real Simmons has none. It’s not enough to get her away from him, but whoever this is, she’s putting up a hell of a better fight than Simmons would.

And as sure as he is that this isn’t Simmons, he’s equally sure that the woman who first spotted the Centipede soldier at the testing site _was_. So, sometime between then and the team’s reunion in the building where Coulson was being held, there was a swap.

And considering where it happened, John was probably behind it. Grant’s…not quite sure how to feel about that.

“Let me go!” the fake Simmons demands, struggling. She lashes out at his bullet wound, sending white hot pain all the way down his arm, and he swears.

As she goes to hit him again, he catches her wrist, yanks and pulls and turns her until she’s securely pinned against the counter with her right arm twisted up behind her. She’s swearing—Russian, with some distinctly Latvian inflections—and thrashing, but while she might not be as small (or as untrained) as the real Simmons, Grant’s still bigger. He’s got her trapped.

And she knows it, too. “If you kill me, you’ll never find her.”

Whether or not John’s behind this, Grant’s deep cover right now, which makes his course of action the same either way. Find Simmons, bring her home, and then rip this imposter to shreds. Doing anything else—anything _less_ —runs the risk of exposing him, and that would _really_ fuck up John’s plans. Grant doesn’t have a choice in this.

(He is _not_ going to examine why that’s such a relief.)

“If she’s hurt,” he hisses in the fake Simmons’ ear, “you’re gonna _beg_ for death before I’m through with you. Now—” a little more pressure exerted on her arm has her crying out “—get. talking.”


	2. all the way to my neck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The interrogation is easy. What comes next is a little more tricky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks very much for all the comments and kudos! I know I owe replies (both for chapter one and for the fic I posted yesterday), but I wanted to get this up before I leave for my best friend's NYE party.
> 
> Speaking of which, happy new year, everyone! I hope this year was spectacular, and that next year is 1000000x better!
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

Grant’s annoyed but not all that surprised to learn that the fake Simmons doesn’t know much of anything.

What she _does_ know, she spills under some less-than-gentle persuasion, and it’s all pretty much what Grant was expecting. The swap happened in the desert, while the team was split up to look for Coulson. The fake Simmons—real name Marija Priede—ambushed the real Simmons, knocked her out, and handed her over to, quote, _some guy_. The physical description is so generic it could apply to half of the agents Hand brought with her from the Hub, and Priede can’t supply a name.

In short, she’s a dead end. When the quarantine gets overridden and Hand storms in, assuming control of the interrogation, Grant passes Priede over without a qualm.

Which is where things get sticky.

Coulson’s kidnapping was one thing. He might be one of Fury’s favorites—hence Hand and the tons of back-up she came with—but at the end of the day, he’s still just a field agent. Simmons, on the other hand, is one of SHIELD’s best and most treasured scientists.

So it really shouldn’t be a surprise that as soon as the deception is revealed, SHIELD—to put it plainly—loses its shit.

Despite their vociferous protests, though, the team isn’t let in on the rescue efforts this time. Fitz gets dragged into lockdown at the Hub pretty much instantly, for fear that he’s next. The last Grant sees of him, he’s being literally carried kicking and screaming off the Bus. Coulson and Grant himself are both benched because of their respective injuries, and apparently no one learned their lesson from Coulson’s rescue, because Skye gets dismissed as a consultant with nothing to offer.

(After some debate, she’s tossed into lockdown with Fitz in the hopes she can calm him down. Grant, solely in the interests of keeping his cover, decides not to point out that it’s the dumbest thing he’s ever heard. Skye’s a lot more likely to break Fitz _out_ of lockdown than help him adjust to it.)

Basically, May’s the only one SHIELD lets in on the rescue efforts. She promises to bring Simmons home and destroy her kidnappers—though not in so many words—and then she’s gone.

Needless to say, the team doesn’t take this lying down.

Grant doesn’t put up the same kind of fight the others do, though. Oh, he offers a token protest, of course, and makes sure he gets caught with Coulson trying to steal one of the Hub’s Quinjets (torture—or maybe just fear of Simmons suffering the same—has apparently made Grant’s commanding officer incredibly reckless), but it’s all for show.

And not because he doesn’t care.

(He knows something the others don’t. Well, he knows _lots_ of things the others don’t. But there’s one specific thing that applies in this case.)

In the wake of the Quinjet incident, Grant’s security access is revoked with extreme prejudice, and he’s kicked out of the Hub with orders not to set foot on SHIELD property again until his shoulder heals.

It’s just what he was counting on—hoping for, even—and after a quick stop at his nearest drop box, he’s off to South America.

There, he finds Simmons exactly where he expects to: in a cell at the Centipede complex in Brazil. It’s the only foreign lab not to have been exposed by the raids that followed Van Chat’s arrest, and there was really no other option for holding her outside the country.

Less expected is that John’s there, too…and he’s not happy.

“So,” he says, lounging in the doorway as Grant studies the video feed from Simmons’ cell.

She’s looking a little battered—bruising on her face, a blood-caked wound on her right arm, possibly a twisted ankle, if the way she keeps gingerly prodding it is any indication—and a lot scared, but compared to Coulson, she’s in pretty good shape.

(He deliberately doesn’t consider why that’s such a relief.)

“So?” Grant asks, and feels a twinge of pity as he turns away from the feed. The security guard in charge of the monitors is hunched over his desk, trying to look as small as possible. He was maybe a little too forceful when he pushed his way in here.

“Got the report on Simmons’ kidnapping,” John says. His tone is casual and his smile friendly, but Grant’s known him long enough to be wary anyway. “It says you were the one who exposed Priede as a fake.”

Grant cracks his neck, trying to ease the tension building at the base of it. “Not exactly.”

“No?”

“I was the one who initially questioned her,” he says, “but we _all_ made her.” He meets John’s raised eyebrows with a quirk of his own. “Gotta wonder if you were even _trying_.”

John’s eyes sharpen. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means Priede was the worst imposter I’ve ever _met_ ,” he says baldly. “Not only was she _taller_ than the actual Simmons, it only took thirty seconds of talking to her to realize she was a fake. If I hadn’t acted against her, someone else would’ve—and more than that, they would’ve asked why I _didn’t_.”

For a long second, John just looks at him. It’s quiet enough in the security center that Grant’s decently sure the guard’s stopped breathing.

John breaks the tension by laughing.

“True enough!” he admits, slapping the doorjamb as he pushes away from it. “She was a terrible copy, but to be fair, she was never gonna last that long, anyway. If I had anyone even half as smart as Simmons…well, I wouldn’t need her, now would I?” He shrugs carelessly. “Priede was the best I could do on short notice—and hey, she did what I needed her to! The rest is just—” he waves an airy hand “—details.”

Huh.

“And what did you need her to do?” Grant asks as he snags his go-bag out of the corner.

He’s never been to this base before—they’ve always kept their distance from Centipede outposts, just in case—so when he falls into step with John, he has no idea where they’re headed.

“Keep SHIELD from realizing Simmons was gone long enough to get her out of there,” John says, spreading his hands. “Witness my success!”

Grant eyes him, considering. John’s always tended towards the obnoxiously cheerful side of things, but even so, he’s in a weirdly good mood for a guy whose operation just suffered a major setback.

“If you don’t mind my asking, why exactly did you want Simmons, anyway?” he asks. He can’t stop his mind from wandering to the state Coulson was in when they found him, and feels compelled to add, “Girl can’t lie to save her life. If she knew anything about Coulson’s resurrection, I’d have picked up on it by now.”

John claps him on the back, sending pain radiating out from his bullet wound. Grant bites down on a curse.

“Grant, my boy, you have no idea the things you’ve missed.” John turns right, into another hall, then takes a sharp left into the first open door. Grant follows to find himself in a large, well-appointed lab. “I know _exactly_ how Coulson survived New York.”

Grant’s breath stutters in his lungs. “You—what? _How_?”

There’s a refrigerator near the back of the lab, the same kind of small, glass-fronted one Simmons uses to keep specimens in, and John leads the way over to it. Grant’s legs are like lead as he follows.

“Seems Alexander Pierce’s been reminded of his own mortality lately,” John tells him, patting the top of the fridge fondly. “Hell if I know what sparked it, but all of a sudden, he took an interest in our little project. Fury—and SHIELD—was in such a panic over Coulson getting nabbed, no one noticed when Pierce did some digging into classified files: Level 10, just like him. The files led us to a place called the Guest House, and there…I found these.”

He taps the glass, indicating the tray of test tubes resting on the top shelf.

“What are they?” Grant asks, eyeing them. They don’t look like anything special—they could be any of a dozen things Simmons has in the Bus’ lab’s fridge at any given moment—but somehow, the sight of them is enough to tie his stomach into knots.

“GH formulas,” John says, pleased. “One of these brought Coulson back to life. Once we figure out which—’cause hell if I know—we can get working on reproducing it for use in the Centipede serum. I get my cure, the bosses get their immortal soldiers, and you can ditch your babysitting gig. Everyone wins!”

Grant takes a quick glance around the empty lab. The knots in his stomach tighten further.

“So where does Simmons come in?”

“Where else?” John asks, throwing his arms open. “She’s gonna figure this stuff out for us!”

Yeah. That’s pretty much what Grant thought he was gonna say.

“Simmons might be a scientist, but she’s not a pushover,” he warns. “She’s not gonna be in a hurry to help after being kidnapped, and threatening her life won’t scare her.”

“Yeah, I read the report about her taking a dive outta your plane,” John nods. “Kid’s got guts, huh? But don’t worry; I’m a persuasive kinda guy, and she’s a smart girl. I’m sure I’ll be able to convince her to see things my way.”

Grant’s an undercover operative—one of SHIELD’s best. So it’s no trouble at all for him to return the smile John gives him, or to make it look perfectly sincere.

It’s _not_ sincere, though. Why that is—why the tone behind the word _convince_ sickens him—he would really rather not think about.

“After twenty five years, things are finally falling into place.” John claps his hands and rubs them together. “It’s about damn time. Now come on,” he tosses over his shoulder, already halfway to the door, “I’ll show you your quarters before we get started.”

And not even Grant’s a good enough liar to pretend he doesn’t know why that _we_ makes his heart clench.


	3. to let my heart decide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter didn't go over too well, so...I hope y'all like this one better? Assuming anyone's still reading.

Simmons, unsurprisingly, is stubbornly resistant to the idea of working for John.

It’s beyond frustrating. Grant’s _sure_ that if he could just talk to her—if he could tell her exactly what John wants her to do and why it’s important—he would be able to convince her. Unfortunately, he can’t. Or, well, _won’t_.

Simmons can’t lie. That’s been conclusively proven. So if she sees Grant here, working for the enemy, there’s no way she’ll be able to keep it to herself once she’s let go. Even if he manages to win her over to their way of thinking, she’ll give him up in her very first debrief, whether she means to or not.

He’s still holding out hope for getting her back to the team once she’s figured out the GH formulas, but the minute she sees him—the minute she realizes he’s part of Centipede—that hope’ll go up in smoke. She’ll be stuck here, in this position if not this specific base, for the rest of her life. (Or until his cover gets blown, but there’s a more than decent chance that’ll never happen, so.)

He doesn’t want that for her. He knows what Fitz and Skye—and hell, even May and Coulson—mean to her, and he doesn’t want to her to have to spend the rest of her life missing them. He doesn’t want her to spend the rest of her life as a prisoner.

He’s been forced to face an undeniable truth: somewhere along the line, he got attached to the team. To Simmons and her gleeful enthusiasm, Fitz and his grudging friendship, Skye and her never-ending sarcasm. He was given the job—the duty—of protecting them, and somehow, it’s become more than just an assignment. Somehow, he actually _cares_.

So he’s gotta stay away from Simmons, no matter how tempting it is to go in there and just _explain_.

A temptation, unfortunately, that only grows as the weeks pass.

Simmons needs to be in reasonably good shape to work in the lab, but there’s a hell of a lot of wiggle room between ‘reasonably good shape’ and ‘unharmed.’ Watching her suffer, day in and day out, is hard. John’s already gone, back to running missions with Trip, but the men he left Grant in charge of have no qualms about threatening, terrifying, or even hurting a helpless woman.

(Grant’s never had any qualms before, either.)

If it wasn’t so terrible to watch, he might be impressed. Simmons gets roughed up on a daily basis—and threatened with a lot worse—but she never wavers. The one time she _seems_ to—the day that, cradling a fractured wrist, she sobs her capitulation—she immediately turns around and builds a bomb. In the wake of the explosion (which destroys half her lab), she makes it three-quarters of the way across the compound before she gets caught.

It’s her most daring escape attempt. It’s not her last.

Her next escape attempt is a complete failure—she doesn’t even make it to the next hallway—but for some reason, it’s the last straw.

Grant’s been sending (heavily encoded) updates to John after every attempt, and on that front, this attempt is no different.

It _is_ different, however, in one very important way: this update actually gets a response. A not at all encouraging response that says, basically, that John’s out of patience, and it’s time for plan B.

He doesn’t explain what plan B _is_ —but then, he doesn’t need to. Plan B arrives the very next day.

Plan B is a HYDRA agent, a creepy fuck named Harper who identifies himself as a _compliance specialist_. The first thing he does upon arriving is go straight to Simmons’ cell, and Grant—who knows perfectly well what compliance means when it comes to HYDRA—watches over the security feed with a heavy heart.

Simmons is huddled in the corner of her cell, pressed into the tiny space between the wall and the end of her bed. She spends a lot of time there, he knows, hugging her knees to her chest and watching the guards on patrol pass her cell with wary eyes, but it’s never stopped itching at him. She looks like a cornered animal: small and terrified and nothing at all like the woman who had the nerve to scold _him_ for risking his life when he jumped after her to save hers.

She’s still got her pride, though; when Harper stops outside her cell, she pushes to her feet and steps out of her corner.

“Can I help you?” she asks—disdainfully, like he’s some moron who’s interrupted her in the middle of something important. A smile tugs at Grant’s lips, despite himself.

“You can,” Harper says, serenely. He gives Simmons a slow once-over, and even through the feed, Grant can see there’s something wrong behind his eyes, something _twisted_. It’s enough to make ice curl in Grant’s gut. “You can agree to the demands you’ve been given.”

“Oh, this again,” Simmons sighs, turning away. “Do none of you people _talk_ to one another? You’d save all our time if you’d simply make an announcement. I am _not_ going to work for Centipede, and that is that.”

She sits herself almost regally on the edge of her bed and folds her hands in her lap.

“Was that all?” she asks.

Harper’s smile never wavers. “I’m giving you a chance to reconsider. You’ll save us time and _yourself_ a lot of pain if you say ‘yes’ now. This is the last chance you’re getting. After this, the kid gloves come off.”

Simmons watches him. It’s amazing how stern she can look with a tear-, dirt-, and blood-stained face.

“So?” Harper prompts. “What do you say?”

She lifts her chin, and something in Grant’s chest aches. “No.”

“Okay,” Harper says, shaking his head. “But remember this, Agent Simmons: you had your chance.”

With that, he nods to the grunts hovering just out of frame, and they move in.

Grant turns his back on the sight of Simmons being dragged from her cell and stalks out of the security center. He tells himself it’s a good thing, Simmons getting brainwashed. She’ll figure out the GH formulas, save John’s life, and then she can go back to SHIELD—back to the team—with no one the wiser. He might even be able to visit with her while she’s working: if she’s brainwashed, she won’t be able to give him away. They can make her a better liar when they make her more compliant.

It’s that simple.

It’s gonna be fine. Everything will be fine.

…It’s not fine.

The problem with brainwashing is that in order to brainwash someone—to go in and program their brain like a computer—you have to break them first. And Simmons has already proven to be stronger than she looks. She won’t break easy.

She _doesn’t_ break easy.

Harper, on the other hand, is every bit as creepy as he looks. He gets a kick out of what he does—really loves his work—and expects everyone else to, as well. He leaves the door of his little torture chamber open, the better to share Simmons’ screams with the whole base.

Grant can’t get away from them. They echo in every hall, every corner—in the hollow of his chest. He tries to avoid the security feed, doesn’t read the reports Harper submits on his progress, never looks in on the torture…but he can’t escape it. The truth of what Simmons is suffering follows him everywhere, nipping at his heels: like Skye after Hong Kong, it shadows him everywhere, demanding his attention.

It even follows him into his dreams. He’s never been one for nightmares, aside from the occasional horrible imagining about where Thomas might be and what might be happening to him, but now…

After three days, Simmons still hasn’t broken.

But Grant has.

He’s been in pretty frequent contact with Coulson over the last few weeks. Not _constant_ , and not detailed, but frequent. Coulson knows (thinks he knows) him better than to believe Grant would just give up on finding Simmons, so he’s been texting him (through burner phones, naturally) every other day or so. And every other day or so, Grant’s texted back something quick—something vague—about being on the trail.

On the third day of Simmons’ torture, Grant gets another text. For whatever reason, he doesn’t answer it right away.

Instead, later that night, sitting up in bed as the music he’s playing totally fails to drown out the sound of Simmons’ screaming, he grabs his phone and pulls up the text.

All it says is _Status?_ , but somehow, it seems to taunt him—to _accuse_ him.

He spends hours staring down at it while Simmons’ screams chip away at his resolve.

And finally, finally, as the first hints of dawn creep through his window, he replies.

_Think I found her. Going to infiltrate. Keep it quiet._


	4. get me outta this place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter fought me SO HARD, you guys have no idea. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> This is also for the **Point of View** theme for Ward x Simmons Winter. As in, a different POV. Because it's Jemma's.
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

Captivity is unpleasant.

Torture is worse.

Jemma doesn’t know how long it’s been since the torture started—since she gave her final refusal to cooperate and was dragged from her cell—but it feels like years.

The pain never stops.

When her tormentor is present, she is actively harmed. She is burned and beaten and broken while he spills poisonous words about the glory of HYDRA— _HYDRA_!—and the release she’ll find in compliance into her ear. There’s a rhythm to his voice, a certain cadence that allows it to slot right between her screaming and the racing of her heart, and the pain—however excruciating—is no distraction from it.

She wants to cover her ears, but her hands (mercifully left untouched—but of course, they _want_ her for what her brain can lead her hands to do) are very firmly restrained.

Her only reprieve from the words—the awful words that drill into her heart, that plant thoughts like _could acquiescing be worse than_ this _?_ in her mind—comes when her torturer leaves (which he’s done a few times; _he_ has that luxury).

The pain, however, continues without him.

And not only in the form of the lingering agony of wounds she’s already suffered, either. The apparatus to which she’s restrained is either in possession of a limited AI or exceedingly well programmed; either way, in her torturer’s absence, it delivers her with the occasional shock, sending a current of painful electricity under her skin—always at the _exact_ moment that she’s started to become accustomed to the pain of her wounds.

She supposes it’s designed to keep her from closing herself off; if she manages to adjust to the pain, she might be able to begin to block it out, and that would render the torture pointless. The design of her restraints, to allow her no rest even when the monster who tortures her is absent, is actually quite clever.

All of this, she surmises very early on. It’s not long before the strain of her torment takes its toll and thinking becomes impossible. She sinks into agony and drowns in it, noting her torturer’s comings and goings only because of the brief clarity his absence brings—and then the current pulls her back under, and all she knows is pain.

Until eventually—blessedly—it stops.

Well, not _stops_ , per se. Every inch of her is still in screaming agony, from the top of her head to the soles of her feet, but the searing pain against her side that had been growing and growing has suddenly faded to a dull throbbing. _That_ isn’t unusual—after all, her torturer often switches between instruments and locations, varying the specific type of pain he inflicts—but what is unusual is that the searing pain isn’t immediately replaced by something else.

Perhaps he’s leaving again?

But there’s a choked sound that _doesn’t_ come from her, and she opens her eyes (long since screwed shut against pain and whatever horror might next be in store for her) just in time to see a guard yanking the branding iron that used to be searing her skin out of her torturer’s stomach.

…What?

Her torturer falls backwards, both hands clasped over the hole through his middle, mouth open in a silent scream. The guard stares down at him and, without hesitation, draws a gun and shoots him right in the face.

For Jemma, it’s horribly satisfying.

It’s also messy, but the guard barely blinks. He turns to Jemma, and for a heartbeat she’s almost relieved, because surely he means to kill her, as well, and her pain will finally end.

Then she recognizes him.

“Ward,” she croaks— _that_ hurts; she’s been screaming her throat raw for so long there’s hardly anything left of it—and he shushes her.

“It’s okay,” he soothes, stepping carelessly over her torturer’s corpse to approach her. He brushes her hair away from her face and cups her cheek, and even though it hurts, she leans into his touch as best she can. “I’m gonna get you out of here, okay?”

After however long she’s been here, she must be dehydrated. If not, she would undoubtedly be crying from relief. As it is, it seems there’s enough moisture left in her tear ducts to blur her vision.

“Yes. _Please_.”

“Okay,” Ward says. His hand lingers on her face for a moment—perhaps he realizes how desperate she is for comfort—and then he drops it and steps back to look her over.

His jaw tightens as he studies her various wounds, eyes angrier than she’s ever seen them. Even in the grips of the berserker staff, his expression was never this _dark_.

She finds it absurdly reassuring.

“You’re in no shape to run,” he says finally. “And there’s no way I can carry you without hurting you.” He frowns at her legs; she can’t see them, restrained upright as she is, but the fire that shoots through her left leg every time she so much as twitches gives her an idea of the damage. “So I’m gonna knock you out, okay?”

She blinks at him.

“With the night-night gun,” he hastily clarifies, unholstering it and holding it up. “With any luck, I’ll have you out of here and back to SHIELD before the dendrotoxin wears off. Sound good?”

Being unconscious sounds _blissful_. “Very.”

Part of her hopes she won’t wake up at all. She’s suffered an extended period of torture, and her injuries won’t disappear just because she’s away from the place where they were inflicted. There is a very long and very painful road ahead of her.

She doesn’t know that she has the strength to walk it.

There’s no opportunity to think on it further, however. No sooner does Ward receive her agreement than he raises the night-night gun and, with a reassuring smile, pulls the trigger.

Jemma falls gratefully into oblivion.

 

 

She opens her eyes on a low wooden ceiling. Her pain is a tiny, distant thing; the world has gone soft around the edges, and she feels as though she’s been wrapped in several layers of thick, warm fleece.

And a frowning stranger is leaning over her.

Panic reaches past the warmth and comfort to punch her in the gut. Frightened, she tries to scramble away, but moving proves a terrible mistake. She cries out as her whole body screams in renewed pain.

Someone says something sharply; she can’t make sense of the words, but the voice is familiar and, relieved, she collapses back onto the bed as the strange man above her backs hurriedly away.

Ward takes his place. The sight of him is even more reassuring than the sound of his voice (especially as he’s lost the guard’s uniform he was wearing in—that place), and her heartbeat slows as her pain fades back into a shadow of itself.

Ward is here. Everything is fine.

“Hey,” he says, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. Fuzzily, she notes that the jumper he’s wearing looks very cozy. “How you feeling?”

“Soft,” she decides after a moment of slightly hazy contemplation. She’s pleased to find speaking hurts as little as the rest of her, though her mouth is still unpleasantly dry.

Ward smiles slightly. “I’ll take it.”

“Me, too.” The blanket beneath her finger is a bit scratchy, but it’s miles and miles better than what she left. If she didn’t have such pressing questions, she would drop right back into sleep—and even with them, it’s a close thing. “This doesn’t look like SHIELD.”

“No,” he agrees, smile fading. “I ran into some trouble on the way out of that base. Had to go to ground. We’re in one of my safehouses, about 20 miles outside of Iquitos. Peru,” he adds as she frowns in confusion.

“They—” Jemma’s shock raises her voice a touch, and even through the layers of what she presumes are some very strong painkillers, it’s too much for her throat. She breaks down coughing, sending little tremors of pain through her body as she shakes with it.

“Careful,” Ward says. He helps her sit up, shifting further onto the bed so she can lean on him, and pulls a bottle of water from—somewhere. She misses its exact origin; after so long without beverage of any kind, she’s too delighted to have it to care where it came from.

Ward helps her sip from it, and though she’s very tempted to rip it from his hands and guzzle the whole thing at once, she knows better. (On top of which, she’s weak as a newborn kitten, and even in perfect shape she’d have little chance of overpowering Ward. Patience is her only option.)

“You’re not dehydrated anymore,” Ward tells her as she clutches his wrist, “since my friend there had you on an IV for a few hours, but you still need to take it slow.”

“I know,” she says, resigned. “I’m just…very thirsty.”

“I bet.” He rubs her back soothingly, and she rests her head on his shoulder, too exhausted to be embarrassed by it. “Now, what were you trying to say?”

She has to think for a moment, but it comes to her eventually. “They had me in _Peru_?”

“Brazil, actually,” Ward corrects, and offers her another half-smile. “But you needed a doctor and I don’t speak Portuguese. It was easier to bring you here.”

“A language you _don’t_ speak?” she asks, feigning shock. (Probably not very well; she can’t quite feel her face—likely a mercy—and it makes expressions difficult.) “I don’t believe it.”

He sighs heavily, though his smile remains. “Just don’t tell Skye. She’ll never let me hear the end of it.”

She’s distracted for a second by the realization that he’s set the water bottle aside, and somehow she’s come to hold his hand—when did _that_ happen?—but once his words sink in, her heart jumps in her chest.

Skye. The team. _Coulson_.

How could she forget?

“Coulson,” she says, urgently, gripping Ward’s hand as tightly as she can. “Did you—?”

“He’s fine,” Ward promises, squeezing back. It’s a gentle squeeze, but probably still more forceful than she managed. “We found him in the desert, just like we thought. He was in bad shape, but he’s healing.”

“Good,” she says, heart slowing—though only slightly. It strikes her suddenly to worry about this scene, about the fact that her only company is Ward. Not that she’s at all ungrateful for his presence, but the absence of the others—especially Fitz—is concerning. “And the others?”

“Also fine. No one else was taken,” he says, preempting her next question. “Fitz got tossed into lockdown as soon as we realized you were gone, Skye got put in with him, and Coulson, I think, got handcuffed to his hospital bed after we tried to steal a Quinjet.”

Jemma stares, certain she’s misheard. “You…?”

“Tried to steal a Quinjet, yeah.” Ward’s smile is sheepish. “In my defense, it was Coulson’s idea.” He shrugs the shoulder she’s not leaning against. “But honestly, none of us took it well when SHIELD told us we’d have to sit out the search for you.”

…Sit out the search?

She blinks, looking between him and herself, wrapped in blankets (and bandages…and a cast for her left wrist) and very much rescued.

“This is sitting out the search?” she asks.

“Officially, yeah,” he says. “SHIELD’s looking for you in Europe, last I checked. I decided to do my own searching.” His smile fades. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

“That’s all right,” she says, pressing herself a little closer to him. For a man of such muscular physique, he’s surprisingly soft, and sleep is still tugging at her. “I’m sure you did your best.”

She hears him swallow, but it’s a long moment before he says, “Yeah.”

“So,” she says. “What’s next?”

“What’s next is you get some sleep,” he says, hugging her close. “And I’ll see about getting a secure line to call Coulson.”

“Not SHIELD?” she asks, even as she cuddles into his embrace. He must have been _very_ worried about her; Ward’s hardly the hugging type. Still, she’s not above taking advantage of it, not after what she’s been through.

(The fact of her torture—and imprisonment—is a remote and fuzzy one, right now. Once the painkillers wear off, she imagines she’ll have quite a lot to deal with, mentally and emotionally speaking. She’s glad to put it off.)

“Nah,” Ward says. “I’ll leave it to Coulson to decide when we put them out of their misery.”

“That’s not very—very nice,” she scolds around a yawn.

“Why don’t you lie back down?” he suggests, rather than address her reprimand, and before she knows she means to, she’s clutching his shirt with her good hand. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

“Right,” she says, embarrassed, and lets go of him. “Of course. Sorry.”

“For what?” he asks as he assists her in settling back against her pillows. “Nothing wrong with wanting a little comfort after what you’ve been through.” He smiles down at her, though his eyes remain very serious. “I’ll be right here if you need me.”

She feels colder, outside of his embrace, but she has blankets aplenty and sleep’s call is growing too loud to ignore. It would be silly to ask Ward to serve as her teddy bear; he undoubtedly has other things to do.

“Thank you,” she says, and realizes as she does so that it’s very belated. “For that and for—for saving me.”

She wants to expand on it, because in the face of what Ward rescued her from, a _thank you_ is hardly enough. But it will have to wait. Now that she’s lying down, staying awake is completely impossible. Her eyes drift shut and promptly become far too heavy to reopen.

“You’re welcome,” Ward says from very far away.

Then he says something else, of which she can make no sense. Spanish, she thinks vaguely. They’re in Peru, so it’s probably Spanish.

It’s her last thought before sleep pulls her under.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm thinking of trying something a little different with this one. It's come to my attention that one of my major weaknesses as a writer is my tendency to fixate on minutiae; I have such a clear picture of events in my head that I want to share it, and end up wasting 2,000 words on something that no one (including me) cares about and which could be passed over in three or four sentences. I always end up getting stuck on the boring parts but am too stubborn to give them up...and this, in short, is why I have more than 200 unfinished fics languishing on my hard drive. 
> 
> So! If/when I continue this, it won't be with further chapters, but with further drabbles. They won't flow as smoothly from one to another, but they'll (hopefully) be a lot more interesting and therefore easier to write. Fingers crossed!


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